Auto-owners besiege Thakurgaon municipality

Owners and drivers of diesel-run three-wheelers and battery-run auto-rickshaws, with their vehicles, besieged Thakurgaon Municipality yesterday, demanding cancellation of tender bid for collecting toll from the vehicles.  

They also put up barricades at all the entry points of the municipality with their vehicles.

They staged the sit-in in the municipality compound from 10:30am to noon, following a discussion at the same venue. 

Leaders of Thakurgaon Three Wheelers' Association and Battery-run Auto-rickshaw Samity said the municipal authority floated a tender to collect toll from the vehicles illegally. They urged the authority not to do so because it would create an unstable situation.

They withdrew the barricade after the municipal authority withheld the tender.

Among others, President Indrajeet Guha Thakurata, and General Secretary Zakaria Pramanik of Thakurgaon Three Wheelers' Association, and President Siddiqur Rahman of Battery-run Auto-rickshaw Samity, addressed the rally. 

Rashedul Islam, secretary of Thakurgaon Municipality, told this correspondent that the municipality floated a tender on May 5 to give lease for collection of toll from public toilets, slaughter houses, three wheelers and battery-run auto-rickshaws plying on the roads in the municipality, and also from the stands and parking areas.

The last date of submission of tender bids was May 18.